


Recovery

by QuiltedRose49



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Campania Arc, Gen, Hurt!Sebastian, Sick!Ciel, exploration fic, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25999807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuiltedRose49/pseuds/QuiltedRose49
Summary: Floating in the middle of a freezing Atlantic Ocean, blood still flowing from the grievous blow dealt by the Undertaker, Sebastian is all too aware that neither he nor Ciel are completely out of peril.
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing from the Kuroshitsuji franchise. All I have to my name are plots and Ocs.
> 
> A/N: Hello everyone! This is a Kuroshitsuji fic based on chapter 65 that I've always wanted to write and can't seem to find very much about :( So I've decided to finally write my own (instead of working on updating my two other stories ehehehe *ducks behind a sizeable boulder*), and I hope you all enjoy this little exercise in self-indulgence.
> 
> ~Happy Reading!~

The gore-slicked lifeboat lurched and rocked in the crimson waters, the slap of the waves against the sides interrupted by the dull thuds of dismembered limbs and torsos knocking against the stout wood. The demon braced his being against the sickening pulses of pain radiating from his middle, trying to tune the whole of his senses to the Here and Now. His contractor still needed him. The shivering boy was huddled next to where the devil kneeled, alternating between tracking the approach of the distant rescue vessel and the audibly gasping butler.

Truthfully, the child was not much better off, his face pale and wan, a distinct wheeze underlying each inhale that forebode a dreadful cold or case of pneumonia. They were not yet out of danger, and both the contract and his own sense of duty drove him to continue tending to the boy's needs.

Ignoring the sizzling sparks that branched from the ruined nerves surrounding the crater in his torso, Sebastian carefully reclined against the edge of a stern bench, the motion catching his young charge's eyes.

"You must keep yourself warm, young master," The Earl's gaze narrowed as he shuddered beneath the tailcoat draped about his shoulders.

"Rub at your chest, move around…," he paused a moment to manage his breathing, "You must keep your blood circulating."

"And you?" Sebastian shook his head, closing his eyes briefly to hide the flaring pain…

"…—tian, Sebastian! Wake up!" A small hand jostled his shoulder, and lighting screamed through his form.

His eyes snapped open and he bared sharp teeth in warning to the wretch that had dared to lay a hold on him…a pair of wide eyes stared back in growing alarm; one cerulean, the other bearing the unnatural fuchsia of his mark.

"…Sebastian?" His lips slid back over his teeth, and he blinked down at the diminutive figure of his master, vision abruptly blurry.

"W-what is it?"

"The ship is nearly here," The demon swiveled his head drunkenly to behold the rapidly oncoming hull of their impromptu rescue.

"…eyepatch…," he muttered, and the flurry of motion in his peripheral indicated that the boy had taken his hint.

His eyelids sagged low, abnormally heavy. A slow blink and Ciel was before him again, his single eye boring intently into his limp shape.

"Sebastian, you have to stay awake!" His voice was sharp, underscored with something verging on panic, "Help is here, just stay awake…it's an order!"

The hand bearing his contract sigil spasmed, and he forced his battered, screaming body to clamber to its feet. The boy flinched back as he lurched and swayed, before stepping forward in an effort to steady him. The demon's head lolled, tilting back, and bleary eyes watched a rope ladder clatter into the belly of their lifeboat. Living arms and voices reached for them from above.

Ciel yelped in protest as the sagging butler seized him by the shoulders and hoisted him onto the ladder. Clumsy, frozen fingers scrabbled uselessly for a moment before finding purchase, and Ciel began his slow ascent to the ship deck. Rough and calloused hands grasped his own in a surprisingly gentle grip, there was a blur of unfamiliar, strained faces, and then the flash of a familiar uniform.

"Smile! Are you alright?! Where's Black? Asks Emily,"

"Snake…," Ciel murmured through chattering teeth, "Sebastian's…Sebastian's hurt,"

"Ciel! Watch out, Mr. Snake, I've got him!" Blonde hair, fierce green eyes; it was Edward, Edward was safe and here, and Ciel felt himself slumping in relief…

* * *

Snake quickly relinquished the boy to his relative, confident he would be tended to.

_Black is hurt!_

He moved quickly to the huddle of agitated sailors stationed by the ladder.

"Come on, mate, you're almost there! We've seen grannies make the climb this morn', you can manage! Even that scrawny tyke made it just now," The mocking edge underlying the 'encouragement' set Snake's teeth to grinding.

He found himself fairly snarling, "He's _injured!_ Help him up! Says Oscar,"

The derisive sailor turned; slowly too slowly, and Snake felt satisfaction flare briefly at the indignant surprise that crossed his face as another even more burly sailor shoved him aside. The man laid himself flat on the deck, his upper half hanging off the side, and the surrounding crewmen hauled him back up at his muffled signal.

Snake felt his eyes widen at the sight of the tattered, blood-soaked body held securely in the grip of the seaman. He darted forward, even as another pale-faced sailor fled the group yelling for the ship doctor.

The sailor cradled Black gingerly on the ship deck, murmuring to him in a stern under-breath, and Snake fell to his knees by the sodden figure. "Get some cloth, put pressure on the wound!" The sailor barked, and Snake automatically tore his coattails off.

"Steady on, lad, steady, you're doing just fine, just fine…," the crewman continued as he supported Black's head, and Snake could only stare for a moment because it most certainly was NOT fine, the gaping rent in Black's middle was NOT fine, and Black was NOT fine.

"Pressure! Now! Stem the bleeding!" Snake jerked and felt as though he might as well be stopping a burst dam with a goose-feather mattress for all the good his coattails did for the weeping hole in Black's torso.

The sailor continued to alternate snapping instructions to Snake and offering a steady stream of rough encouragement to the prone butler. Snake dared a glance at Black's face and felt his insides chill further than he would have thought possible in this already frigid climate.

Black's face was slack, gazing blindly up at the early morning sky through dull slits, his clammy, chalk-white features caked with drying gore. Snake would have thought him dead, save for the weakly heaving chest beneath his hands. Blood was pooling in a dark ocean beneath him, soaking the knees of the footman and the sailor…there was too much blood. Snake frowned distractedly; there was too much blood and while his coattails provided little coverage, they should still be stemming the flow, and yet there was an absolute river still gushing benea—

"Turn him over!" The sailor blinked and followed Snake's horrified gaze in consternation.

Dread seeped through his features and Black loosed a choked gurgle as they leaned him forward, revealing a streaming twin cavern in his back. Snake stared, and a numbness that had nothing to do with the cold sea air stole through him.

The doctor arrived then, smattered in the stains of other injured passengers, and a new flurry of activity began around Black. Snake allowed himself to be shoved aside and the numbness persisted as he gazed around at the few sailors that remained, the gruff and helpful one among them. He noted their weary resignation and listlessness. He couldn't fully suppress his own hopelessness, and he felt ashamed for it.

* * *

The ship doctor had seen many grevious wounds in his time at sea, some that rivaled even the great hole in the young man's middle. Despite that, he did not claim to have much experience in treating such wreckages to human flesh. The patients had never lived long enough for him to attend them.

His eyes met the sightless slits for a moment. Grey and devoid of awareness, but the slender chest continued to rise and fall, defying the endless stream of red life gushing free of it.

So he began treatment.

* * *

His senses returned in fluctuating, painful surges. Touch and feeling seeped back into his supine form, supported by a lumpy, hastily-made cot, and with it the raw ache shrieking from his burning core. His throat worked rapidly, struggling to release a complaint, a moan, a whisper, anything to communicate his agony and discomfort to any that might hear. The muscles in his limbs throbbed in protest as he blindly fought to rise, sought to awaken his other senses, seeking relief.

There was pressure on his eardrums then, as though the echoes of a distant cacophony were only just now reaching him, muffled and distorted. Then there were hands closing on his limbs, forcing him down, and his throat burned with effort. The dim cacophony was no longer so distant, and more hands laid hold of him. Two hands, smooth and fine, belying strength, cupped his face and slid fingers through his hair.

A voice filtered through the din assaulting his ears, gentle refinement wrapped around unyielding granite.

"—tian, Sebastian, be still!…own, lay back _down_!"

He yielded through fiery agony, his body unable to keep laboring against its onslaught, and the lumpy cot welcomed his return.

* * *

The last harried nurse departed, and Lady Frances leaned back into her seat with a subdued exhale of relief. She eyed her husband wearily from the other side of the sick bed. Alexis was absentmindedly rubbing at his shoulder. He was hardly a small man, and she still could scarcely believe that the butler had possessed the strength to strike out and send him reeling, let alone struggle against four crewmen, two nurses, and a beleaguered ship doctor.

Her husband glanced up and met her eyes, a tired smile creasing his face.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes dear, I'll be fine," he rolled the bruised joint, "Besides, I think we're fortunate to have been here rather than Ciel,"

Frances quelled the nauseating anxiety that surged up her throat at the thought of the boy attempting to restrain Sebastian's writhing figure. It mattered not how capable or resourceful Ciel proved to be, he was still remarkably fragile, and the butler was clearly not himself.

Not that she knew of anyone who might fare differently, let alone survive being ran through by… _something_. The ship's doctor was obviously out of his depth, overwhelmed by the multitude of traumatized passengers that had been plucked from a chilled and foaming ocean, and at a loss in determining what had caused such a devastating wound.

Ciel had remained vexingly quiet as well, except to say that he and his butler had been following up on a lead as the Queen's Watchdog. Thus far, he had remained asleep for most of their stay aboard, recovering from extreme temperatures and exposure, and his strained ankle.

Frances, however, had always been proficient with blades, and was not ignorant of the damages they could incur. The gaping cavern stretching from Sebastian's sternum to his navel, glimpsed through make-shift, blood-soaked bandages, was not caused by any dueling blade she knew, but was akin to something wide, flat, and sharp. Like the blade of a farmer's tool or saw. A scythe perhaps, but what purpose would such a large harvesting tool serve on a luxury cruise ship sailing across the Atlantic?

She would probably never know, and felt a familiar wave of bitterness wash through her, that the information she had once been privy to as a Phantomhive was no longer at her disposal, that her family was made vulnerable to harm by this ignorance.

It could so _easily_ have been one of her children lying there, in pain and oblivious to their surroundings.

Instead, it was Sebastian's howls still ringing in her ears. It was his limp form panting raggedly, pale as bone, his sealed eyelids a dark bruised color, and his indecently long hair clinging wetly to his sweat-slicked flesh. Every laborious breath was followed by an alarming wet gurgle from somewhere deep in the butler's throat, and his fingers twitched and curled at odd intervals on the rough blanket draped across his lower half.

Yet, had it been one of her children, there would be no one lying there, for anything that could have toppled the Phantomhive Butler, would have slaughtered them all. Frances did not allow herself the comfort of illusion, she knew all too well what dangerous activities the Watchdog faced, and knew that Sebastian was there with Ciel every step of the way. He was of a sturdier and more lethal stock than the Phantomhives or the Midfords. She, after all, had not been the one to slay the rampaging bear at their little luncheon with a simple serving knife.

She was bleakly thankful it was Sebastian laid low instead of the others; he at least had a chance for recovery. A slim one, but still possible.

The butler's gasping slowed, but remained strained and shallow. Alexis shifted in his seat.

"What will we tell Ciel?"

Frances' lips thinned and her brow furrowed.

_Indeed, what will we say?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me *emerging from the ocean of life like a breaching whale* I LLLLLIIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEE!
> 
> I'm so sorry about how long it's taken me to update this story, and for those of you who follow my other stories, I'm sorry for the gathering dust on them too! Here are my main excuses:
> 
> I got a standard poodle (he is my child, I have insisted that my parents refer to him as their grand-pup).
> 
> I got a new part-time job while I've been student teaching.
> 
> Got hired as a high school art teacher.
> 
> Graduated with my Bachelor's.
> 
> Have also been approved as an assistant coach.
> 
> ….all in that order too….
> 
> I can't promise when the others will be updated, nor when this one will be updated again. I have grades to track, lesson plans to, well, plan, a sport season to prep for, my part-time weekend job, and a sweet fur baby that needs his momma (yes, I'm a horrible sap about my dog, but cut me some slack cuz he's my first dog). Thank you so much to all of you who have stuck with my stories thus far and have left reviews/comments! It's truly been the thing motivating me to continue writing!
> 
> After much ado, here's chapter two!
> 
> ~Happy Reading!~

When a crewman had come racing to him, shouting of an injured man, the doctor had been in the midst of carefully stitching together a nasty gash laid into a young woman's shoulder. Irritated by the interruption, the doctor had snapped that he was quite obviously busy, and that the injured man ought to wait his—

"He's a great hole in 'is middle, he has! There's blood everywhere, he's liable to run out of it!" The doctor had frozen at that very much unwanted image, and his gaze had snapped up to meet the sailor's own.

Crewman Gibbons had always been a steadfast young man, possessed of a more matured and weathered disposition than was usual at his age. His expression, however, had been one of dull horror and upset. The odds that he was exaggerating were not at all likely.

With his thoughts racing, the doctor had quickly motioned one of his nurses to oversee the remains of the stitch work over the feeble protests of the girl's companion, swept up the needed items, and made haste at Gibbons' heels with his remaining assistants.

He had made a beeline for the great huddle of crewmen stood by the deck railing. He had ignored the blood that immediately soaked his trousers when he knelt next to the prone figure.

He hadn't had the time to fret over his inexperience, the devastating blood loss, the likelihood of certain death that glared up at him from the yawning rip in the man's torso. The man had not stopped breathing, his heart had not ceased beating.

It might, the doctor mused to himself, had been better for the man if it had.

* * *

Sharpened nails dug deeply into the rough fabric beneath him, and he heard himself moan, low and pitiful, as another series of shudders wracked his aching frame.

His head throbbed in time with the pulsing, fiery spasms from his torso, an onslaught with each shallow breath he took. Heat suffused him, stifling and inescapable. The blanket he could feel draped over him chaffed and scratched, and felt as though a dense weight was settled over the rent in his middle. He would have kicked it off by now if not for every twitch of his muscles aggravating his wounds.

Another round of shudders rippled through him and his lengthened incisors were all but grinding together.

Something shockingly cold and wet slid over his forehead, and the resulting jerk of surprise forced a choked whine through his teeth. A voice sounded briefly, low and gentle to his sensitive ears, and his brow furrowed further at the incomprehensible words.

The wet thing remained, and tense muscles slowly uncoiled as the chill worked its way from his fevered head and spread icy tendrils through his limbs. He felt himself relax fully, slumping into the support of the sweat-drenched mattress.

* * *

"Monsters! There were monsters!" The doctor jerked to the side to avoid the flailing fist of the child as it wailed, while maintaining a firm grip of the other limb.

"Be still Benjamin!" Snapped the woman that was presumably the boy's mother, to no effect.

"It bit me, it _bit_ me!" The doctor said nothing in response, and finished tying the bandage over what was, indeed, a bite wound.

He managed a weary nod to the mother's resigned thanks, and shuffled to the next bleeding patient.

It seemed as though there was no one on the impromptu rescue vessel that was not injured. Scrapes, bumps, cuts, sprains and bruises abounded. Most were accompanied by tales of inhuman creatures assaulting the passengers.

While sailors were often possessed of superstition, the doctor had thus far remained unswayed by such folly. He had undergone formal medical training, and the education steeped in logic and scientific fact that underscored that training served as a buffer between reason and paranoia throughout his career at sea.

Oh, he didn't doubt something had happened aboard the _Campania_ , it had sank after all and the passengers didn't purpose to be wounded, but monsters? Feh!

The next passenger had an entire hunk of flesh missing from his shoulder. The next one had a bruised necklace of bloodied indents. Another had claw marks running across their face, and another had a distinctly hand-shaped bruise circling their forearm.

Monsters.

He tried not to think about how many of those bite marks perfectly matched a human's dentistry.

* * *

He slid his hand carefully around the petite ankle, feeling for swelling and searching for the red-flushed cast of inflammation. He felt weary relief at the minimal swelling and the absence of anything worse in the strained joint.

"His ankle is coming along nicely. He'll still need to keep off of it for a few days more," The room at large remained tensely silent.

A heaving cough burst past the sleeping child's pale lips, followed by an ever-present wheeze, and the doctor's brows drew together at the wet crackle beneath the violent exhalation. The boy was catching a cold; hardly surprising, most of the passengers were sporting horrid coughing fits, fevers, and chills. It was to be expected after having been floating adrift at sea in lethally cold temperatures.

He straightened from the child's sickbed and reluctantly met the solemn gazes of the surrounding nobility. Steely green pairs of eyes met his and were it not for the worry pinching their faces, he would have wilted before their intensity.

"What of the cough?" This from the older, mustachioed man.

The doctor swallowed a sigh. "Monitor it closely and alert myself or my assistants if it worsens. I would not be surprised were it to develop into a cold or pneumonia."

The blonde boy narrowed his eyes, "That's it?"

"Edward!" The doctor stifled the urge to flinch alongside the boy at his mother's scolding.

"I'm afraid so; this ship was never meant to host so many passengers, let alone so many injured. Forgive my candor, but your nephew will not be the only patient aboard that will likely contract this illness. My supplies are nearly gone, I have to mind the medicine stores,"

"We are grateful for your assistance and care," the mother replied, aiming a meaningful glare at the youth, "We are not unaware of your many obligations,"

The doctor bowed his head in acceptance before gathering his bag up, and moving to the door. He glanced back just long enough to watch the family draw closer to the bed and its insensible owner.

There was a room just off of his own that he tried to keep in reserve for patients in need of close observance. It had rarely been used for that purpose prior to this voyage, but now hosted one such occupant.

* * *

The doctor had been braced for more resistance from the rescued nobility over placing a mere servant at such a high priority, but it was apparently very difficult to argue prestige over impalement, and any protests were very meager indeed. The fierce glares and sharp words of the green-eyed noble family that apparently employed the servant were also effective in discouraging any dissenters.

The doctor had no complaints on the matter; it was one less problem for him to manage.

As he approached the door to the servant's quarters, he strained his ears for any sounds of struggling or raised voices. The patient was proving to be a singular case in a singular event; never before had he witnessed such a greviously wounded person put up such a fight while in the throes of agony, and his limbs and torso ached briefly in rememberance of being jerked and pulled to and fro as though he were trying to secure a wild stallion.

The episode had torn his pain-staking stitchwork, to his helpless fury. He drew in a steadying breath and eased the door open.

The patient lay supine in the precise condition he had been left in; swaddled in dampened sheets and heavily bandaged chest heaving with strained gasps. He moved forward and rested a hand against a pale cheek. Still fevered, the flesh was clammy with perspiration, but the temperature was no longer searing to the touch.

He resisted the sudden impulse to press down harder, to feel the man's teeth through the soft flesh of the cheek. The sharp gleam of clenched incisors had been impossible to ignore in the man's fevered throes.

" _It bit me! It_ bit _me!"_

The doctor shook his head, and removed the now lukewarm cloth, replacing it with a fresh one and a tension he had not noticed before further seeped from the servant's frame, followed by a soft moan of relief.

He peeled back the dense blanket to properly check the extensive bandaging. No new blossoms of red stained the wraps. Good.

The re-stitching had been difficult, more so than the first stitching. From the beginning, the ragged flesh about the edges of the wound were oddly elastic, yet tough, with a consistency akin to rubber. The needle had dulled more than once through the initial sewing, its sharpness eroded with each forceful pass through the stubborn flesh. The second time proved even harder, the skin about the wound had obtained a strange scabbed appearance, scaly even, as though the wound was in the midst of forming scar tissue when the servant's agonized exertions tore it open once more.

Scabbing over…scarcely a day after both receiving it and having it closed up.

He exhaled sharply through his nose and replaced the blanket. He moved further down the bed and pulled back the bottom corner. Using one hand to support the back of the knee, he slid the other to just above the ankle, and gently rotated the bandaged limb. He stilled at the muffled whimper of pain. When the patient gave no further response, he began unwrapping the gauze. It fell away to reveal a circlet of dark, angry bruises, made by many small and thin punctures.

Teeth marks. Human teeth marks.

The wound had been a gory mess yesterday, the thick muscle of the calf badly damaged. Had that been his only wound, he would have recommended the man stay off the leg for some time before upgrading to crutches or a cane. Now it was just a bruise.

_Monsters. Feh!_

He replaced the bandaging.

There was still a horrid gurgle underscoring each breath the servant drew, but the man was as stable as he was going to be for some time. He would, the doctor decided, stay the night in the room.

Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and please! Review/Comment! Feedback is always welcome!

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Alrighty then, there's the first angst filled chapter. I've got at least two more bouncing around in my skull alongside the next chapters for The Devil You Know and Evil Nobility.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and PLEASE REVIEW!


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